I have a confession to make. I love going to conferences, but I hate most keynotes. They always start the event and, in the case of library conferences, there's generally one each morning. Rarely do I enjoy them. Generally, keynotes tend to be big blue sky speeches. They are full of large ideas and positive energy. You're supposed to leave feeling uplifted from all the rah-rah attitude. As much as I love this energy and forward thinking progress, these blue sky speeches are usually full of generic platitudes and vague concepts. Or, if not blue sky, the keynote is basic generalities. Maybe it's because I'm fairly plugged in to my profession and the world in general, but these keynotes tend to be content that I either already knew or could have read in a one-page memo, Or, the keynotes are examples of people doing truly amazing things.... with A LOT of money my organization does not have and will never get. I love hearing about the innovations but this kind of keynote is hard to translate down to organizations without the same level of resources. Every time I go to a conference, I drag myself to the keynotes because I know I should be there, but my internal snark level is high. What's your conference hot take?
0 Comments
This week, I had to submit my annual faculty portfolio. This is in addition to the promotion portfolio I submitted several months ago. It's a lot of work. It frustrates me every year. This year was no different. But, it's always a good reminder about just how much I've managed to accomplish. Plus, gathering all my "evidence" requires me to deep dive into my email. This includes my folder of happy emails. About two years ago, I started saving all the positive feedback students and faculty send me. At first, I did this so I could "prove my impact" in my portfolio. While I still do that, I mostly use this as pick-me-up on hard days. I like to open that folder and read all the good messages. Even re-reading just one message can help improve my day. Do you have a happy emails folder?
This week I (finally) got to book my travel for a work conference in May. It's out on the west coast which always presents a dilemma. Do I get up before the sunrise so I can minimize delays and arrive at a normal hour but show up exhausted? Or, do I sleep to a reasonable hour, leave in the afternoon, but arrive quite late? So far, I've always opted for option A. For some reason, I prefer getting up at 3:30 in the morning to make those 5 or 6AM flights. I like knowing that my plane is already there and that I have a better chance of making my connections. Then, when I arrive on the west coast, I have the chance to settle in and, just maybe, sneak in a few hours of sightseeing. But, I always end up struggling to stay awake past 8PM. At my last west coast conference, I fell asleep at 8:30PM and awoke at 5AM the following day. I never really did settle in to the time change. Getting up that early makes for some very long conference days. I generally break down and get an afternoon coffee for an energy boost which is something I rarely do. Do you prefer early flights or later flights?
Parenting is full of surprises. Certain things I knew I would definitely do... or not do. Some things I left to fate. Other things I have done complete about-faces on from what I thought I would do (lol the idea of making my own baby food). And then there are the things you can't plan for. I always thought I would be a "Mommy." It's what I called my mom. It's what I call myself. It's what my husband calls me when talking to our kiddo. I figured, because that's what we did, I would be "Mommy" until kiddo outgrew it... hopefully not until college. I did not count on the influence of Daniel Tiger. This was the first TV show we freely let our kiddo watch and she was quickly a fan. On that show, Daniel's mom is Mom Tiger. Mom - not Mommy. Slowly but surely our kiddo stopped calling me Mommy and moved to Mom. I had no idea how sad I would be about that change. But, I let it happen because this was definitely not something that needed to be corrected. Then, this week, out of nowhere, kiddo started calling me "Mommy" again. I don't know what prompted the change but those extra two letters coming out in our kiddo's cute voice makes my heart melt. I don't think it will last, but I'm going to relish being "Mommy" again for as long as I can.
This week's Wrap is short because, despite some life shenanigans putting speed bumps in the way, the husband and I are (finally!) on our annual friends' ski trip. We're enjoying lots of quality time, a hot tub, putting together a puzzle, and eating great food with people we don't get to see often enough. (I am the strictly après ski type.) What's one of your favorite friend traditions?
Our kiddo is in a phase of development where she has a decent vocabulary but context is still missing. For example, "tomorrow" is basically any time in the future and "yesterday" is any time in the past. When she says she "slept" during nap time, it means she laid down and stopped playing - it doesn't mean she actually slept. The most complicated issue, at least in terms of parenting is pronoun usage. She gets "I" and "You." She's sorta got the idea of "we." But, when it comes to the third person, everyone is "he." I know that this is mostly because she finds the "sh" sound a bit hard. But, I also want to be cognizant of teaching her basic usage while also retaining inclusiveness. Our kiddo is not yet 5. She's not at the stage where she can fully comprehend ze/zir, xe/xem, ve/ver, or the other pronouns. I've taken to saying, "He for boys, she for girls, they for everyone." I know this falls woefully short of the complexities of pronoun usage, but it's the best I've come up with. If you have tips for teaching pronouns to a youngster, let me know!
I don't always get along with my University's Office of Information Technology (OIT). What they do is incredibly important but they are understaffed in "doers" and overstaffed in management. (There is literally one manager for every tech. There are only three techs. It's bonkers.) That means a lot of things go wrong and fixes aren't happening. Like many organizations, our University deals with a lot of spam email and phishing attempts. OIT has tried various ways to help mitigate this issue. The first attempt was sending an email for every externally sent message that said "The next email is from an external source. Proceed with caution." Not only did it double the amount of email we got, but it didn't catch any of the phishing that came from compromised internal emails. That "fix" lasted all of the day. Next, they started marking all externally sent emails with [EXTERNAL]. This is annoying and makes it hard to read subject lines, but I can ignore it. Then, since many spam/phishs were still getting through, they instituted a quarantine system. This means that any email a Microsoft AI deems as suspicious gets shunted to a folder off our email system that we have to review later. I've found speaking proposal acceptances and other REALLY important material gets caught. (I can guarantee you our University is losing grant opportunities because of this.) We get one notification a day if there is material for us to review. It's a pain and not intuitive at all about how to mark something as safe. AND we're still getting all the internal spam and phishing attempts so it's not actually fixing anything. As the outreach librarian, this means everything I send out through our email vendor is ending up in quarantine. (Not to mention our automatic account notifications AND our University's advising system emails are getting caught.) My open rate has plummeted to less than 3%. I asked for our vendor to be added to the safe list but was told that the "fix" would be for individual people to add us to their safe senders list... BUT THEY DON'T KNOW THESE EMAILS ARE COMING IN THE FIRST PLACE. I asked several times for these materials to be added to the safe senders list. Then, this week, I was sending out emails to every individual faculty member. This is the biggest ROI outreach I do. It's a lot of work, but I get a noticeable increase faculty communication and requests for library services out of it. I do this each semester. I use a form message but the attachments and number of recipients varies with each email. In past semesters, I've completed this without issue. This week, my email address was marked as spam. About halfway through I started getting bounce-backs saying my account was locked. That meant I could not send out ANY email at all. ARRRRGH! I put in a ticket with OIT and our director escalated the issue. Luckily, I was back to work in a few hours. AND since I explained (yet again) what I do for my job they finally added my work email AND our vendor platform as safe senders for bulk messages. Fingers crossed this fight with OIT is finally over. What's aggravated you at work lately?
In the past nine days, we've had two days of childcare. As much as I love getting to go sledding with my kid, I am very tired. Snow days don't mean what they used it. I love having a hybrid schedule and the ability to WFH, but that just means I'm working two full-time jobs when our daycare is closed. In the past, when an office closed it CLOSED. Sure you might answer an email here and there but that was it. These days, it's business as usual just from a new location. Some technological advances come back to bite us. Why can't we all just enjoy a random day off from time to time? Does it really hurt the bottom line of capitalism that much?
I had to edit a lot of writing this week. First, my article for Computers and Libraries Magazine was due Wednesday. I drafted the piece before the holidays and let it sit while I enjoyed my time off. Last week and this week, I did several rounds of intense editing. It was too long and I managed to drop 1,300 words by the final draft. I also noted three additional paragraphs that could be removed if the editor requested more cuts. Luckily, he was good with the article as it was. Next, my research team and I are in the final stages for our research article. I spent two days editing to chop out material. I de-that-ed all over the place. You never realize just how unnecessary "that" is until you have to edit something line by line. We're reviewing my edits as a team to ensure we're all on the same page. So far, we're mostly in agreement. I love clicking "accept changes"! Finally, I wrote a book chapter for an upcoming ALA Editions title. I've been working on this piece, off and on, for over a year. Thursday night, they sent me the "last chance" edit. Essentially, what they sent is what is being printed but I had one last change to tweak. My review showed only a few minor revisions. Oddly, despite having a blog, two newsletters, and writing a lot for work, writing is not one of my favorite activities. Editing, on the other hand, I adore. I love turning on track changes and being ruthless with something. If I'm writing a solo piece, I will print it out and attack it with a red pen. Editing speaks to my need to make things simpler. Plus, I'm not a great writer. Editing is one way I hope to improve. (Although I will never be someone who gets commas. They are my nemesis.) What do you like better: writing or editing?
Happy "Circling Back" season to those who celebrate. Before the holidays, I punted so many things into the new year. Now that we're back, my to do list is all over the place. Classes for our University start tomorrow, I've got an article due Wednesday, there's another (longer) article I need to line edit, I'm still digging out of my email avalanche, there are about 10 meetings in my week, and there's a dentist appointment in there somewhere. I only have myself to blame. I deliberately chose to push a lot of these things off and now I have to get to them. Past me was not kind to present me. But, at least I'm not alone. We all seem to do this. The amount of emails I'm getting that start with an apology is almost hilarious. No one wants to be adding to someone else's plate. At least we're trying to be kind through the chaos. How's your new year going so far?
|